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The head and broken shaft of what appears to be a left-handed 3-wood golf club sits in the parking lot outside the Tasty Bite restaurant in Mississauga, where a 19-year-old Toronto man was beaten to death on June 20, 2011. (JIM WILKES / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Jim WilkesStaff Reporter

Tues., June 21, 2011

What started as an innocent argument in a restaurant washroom ended in a bloody attack that left a 19-year-old Toronto man beaten to death with golf clubs.

Bhumin Patel said he watched helplessly as half a dozen men mercilessly beat his friend Nitish Khanna with woods and irons in the parking lot outside the Tasty Bite restaurant in Mississauga early Monday.

The car rental worker, who had partied with friends after work Sunday night before stopping for a late snack, died on the pavement outside the eatery on Torbram Rd., north of Derry Rd.

Patel told the Star that he, Khanna and another pal were ambushed by at least six guys as they left the tandoori restaurant near Pearson airport at about 2 a.m.

“We were only three and they were six,” Patel said outside the Panorama Ct. apartment building in northwest Toronto where Khanna lived with his parents.

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“It was an eye-opener for me, that life is very fragile. I felt helpless. He's been my friend for years and I could not do anything. I could have tried saving a life, but I couldn't have done it without risking my life.”

As the attack raged, Patel said he was struck by a rock as he called police on his cellphone. The attackers fled in a light-coloured sedan before officers arrived.

Paramedics tried to save Khanna, but he died at the scene.

Minutes earlier, Patel said their friend Bhupinder had been harassed in the restaurant bathroom by another man because he was short.

He said Khanna and Bhupinder had gone to the table of the other men to ask what the problem was and believed they had resolved the issue.

“These guys, one by one, were paying their bills and slowly started leaving,” Patel explained.

He said one of the guys came back inside and approached their table. “He said we're from the same country — India — the same background, that we shouldn't fight with each other.

“He was really polite at that time. I guess that was his trick, telling us to come outside and talk. But as soon as we went out they started swinging the golf clubs.

“It was totally unexpected,” he said. “They just came upon us and my friends got hit. Nitish actually, he got cornered. They kept on attacking him with the golf clubs.”

Rebeca Navarrete, a co-worker at Capital Auto and Truck Rental in Woodbridge where Khanna had worked for a year, said “he was like part of our family.”

“It's heart-shattering for someone to die in such a heartless and cruel way,” she said. “It's a cowardly act.”

The head and broken shaft of a left-handed 3-wood golf club lay in the parking lot. A broken driving iron and the broken shaft of a club lay nearby.

The area remained sealed off with yellow tape as detectives canvassed nearby buildings in the light industrial area northwest of Pearson airport.

The Indian restaurant opens about 4 p.m. each day and caters to taxi drivers, the evening shift at Pearson and nearby trucking companies.

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